


Let Go

by DarkerThanGrey



Series: Dream Weavers, or, 9 Dumbass Guardians Who Made a Clan Together. [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27096751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkerThanGrey/pseuds/DarkerThanGrey
Summary: Storm, awoken hunter, and certified hot mess wakes back up on Cayde's ship, heading towards the Prison of Elders. She doesn't know why she's back, but she does know that she has to save him.Too bad it just doesn't happen.
Relationships: Cayde-6/Female Guardian (Destiny)
Series: Dream Weavers, or, 9 Dumbass Guardians Who Made a Clan Together. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016842
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	Let Go

I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, 

nothing between me and the white fire of the stars 

but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths 

* * *

  
  
  
Storm wakes up with a scream caught in her throat. She catapults out of her seat in whoever’s ship this is, hand going for Ace of Spades, holstered on her right thigh, ready to take down who or what was stupid enough to capture a guardian but leave them armed. Only, the Ace of Spades isn’t there. Holstered on her thigh was an old, familiar hand canon, modded to her liking. But, she hasn’t used this hand cannon since repairing the Ace of Spades...

She’s torn from her swirling thoughts by a voice.

And she very nearly sobs.

“Woah there, partner! Bad dream or something?” How is he here? Why? What sort of cruel joke…? Has she finally cracked under the pressure and her mind is showing her what it wishes could be? 

She realizes she’s been staring and is eternally grateful for the helmet and hood that she wears while in the field. “Storm?”

She wonders how long it’s been since she’s heard anyone call her by name. Her stomach fills with dread. Was it all… Just a dream? She supposes it must have been. Either way, Petra is waiting for them.

The Prison of Elders is a grey blur on the horizon, but as they approach she can see the flames. It’s eerily similar to the dream she had woken from. But all the same, she checks and double-checks her weapons, holstering knives and stowing ammo. A sword and sniper strapped to her back, a hand cannon on her thigh.

It’s easy to fall into the rhythm of the way she used to fight, balls to the wall, blazing a path and aggressing her way through every encounter, laughing as her sword cleaves through legions of enemies. Well placed bullets fell what has to be hundreds as she dances between limbs and rends flesh and metal both.

It’s almost enough fun to quell the dread in the pit of her stomach, an impossibly heavy weight that she can’t shake off. It plays out exactly as she remembers. Petra screams of a prison break, and she now knows exactly who it is. Cayde brings the top of the prison down again, and in this version, she’s in a place to watch it. He winks at her and smiles, following it with a salute to Petra. She’s reminded of a time long ago before everything had gone to shit. When he had winked and smiled just the same in a shoddy bar in some corner of The Last City. When they had gotten drunk together and laughed and stupidly she had pressed her lips against his mouth plates and they had stumbled to her ratty apartment right next door to Isa and Seph, not self-conscious of the underwear on the floor, of the cracks in the walls, of the pictures of her fireteam plastered on the walls. When he had worked her out of her clothing and sent it to join the old laundry on the floor and she had learned first hand that _yes, Exos did indeed have those parts, and yes, they could use them. Heh._

Of course, come the morning when Storm was hungover and Cayde was no longer inebriated, they had talked and agreed that it was a horrible idea and that even though there were no regrets, it could never happen again. A hunter and her vanguard? Zavala would kill them both. And even if that weren’t an issue, Cayde had the memory of his Queen and his Ace. She had no right to step in and take their place. So, they remained friends and drinking buddies. For years. Through the Vault of Glass, through Krota, through Oryx, through SIVA, even after she was a Traveler-damned Iron Lord. Even after the Red War. After she tracked down Osiris. After Zavala nearly excommunicated her for supporting Ana Bray, and killing yet another Hive God.

Now she’s watching as he falls to the bottom floor, where she knows he will die. Where she knows Uldren Sov will steal the Ace of Spades and spit on most of her good memories since her resurrection. She has to get down there. No delays, no investigating the blue ether trails. She sprints. She carves a bloody path through the fallen. 

But she’s too late. She feels Dance die. Her Ghost, who had remained mostly silent through the mission, sensing her dread, finally spoke. He told her to run. She already was. She skids across metal walkways and jumps through air, wrenches open that last door, and hopes and prays to whatever god is listening or even cares.

_And watches as he is shot._

_She wonders if it is her who is dying._

_She screams, charging for Uldren, sword ready to riptearkillrendavenge GET AWAY FROM HIM YOU COWARD-_

But then she’s on the ship again. She falls from her resting place on the bench, on the ground and she’s screaming- 

And then he’s there on the floor with her, questioning, holding, pulling off her helmet and patting her on the back as she screams and comes back from whatever nightmare she was just trapped in. Belatedly, she realizes she’s crying. 

Cayde doesn’t ask why. He just nods his head in understanding at nightmares sometimes getting the best of us, no matter how stoic we may appear. He asks if she’s good to go for combat, and she has no choice but to say yes. He looks at her funny, but he doesn’t question even as she mechanically straps all of her gear back on (was it just her dreaming?) and prepares to transmat to the prison. 

She hears her ghost through her comm. He’s seeking for what’s going on with her. She thinks it strange that he didn’t see the dream as well, but part of her is glad. Nobody should have to watch that. Live through it.

This time, she moves fast. She fights with all of herself and leaves none standing. And when Cayde says to split up, she denies him. She’s right there with him, hanging on as the top of the prison is brought to the bottom. They giggle and laugh as they hold on tight, and for just another moment she’s back to who she was before. The wind whips through her hair

When Sundance and her ghost revive both of them, she’s relieved. This is a change. Now that she’s here with him, she can fight. Cayde shoves the rock that crushed both of them off, and helps her to her feet, engrained chivalry from another life coming out to play.

Here is where it matters. 

She draws her gun.

_It all goes oh so horribly wrong._

_Two guardians is better than one, but 12 barons all at once is too much. When she killed them (Did she? What is the dream and what is not?) Seph and Ezra were right beside her and each fight was three on one. This was worse. This was so much worse. They fought side by side, cleaving through the scorned, but they were endless. Crawling out of cracks and rubble, and raising up even after they were killed, courtesy of The Fanatic. She went first, as she always did. Catapulting herself into fights, interactions, always the one to jump first. Cayde took a bad hit, and she swiveled to try and cover him, leaving her back exposed to a shot from behind. She fell, and Cayde seemed to fight with a renewed fury._

_She wishes that shot had killed her._

_She couldn’t move her body, but her eyes were functional._

_She watched him grow haggard, take hit after hit. Get knocked to the ground, and watched him spend the last of his energy in a blade barrage to_ **_get up._ ** _The last of the scorned were cleared for now, and there was a moment’s reprieve, though the barons still lined up along the wall._

_Cayde should have known better. She had ordered her own ghost through their bond to not heal her, to not risk it. All guardians knew to never pull their ghost out in a combat zone unless they were absolutely certain there were no enemies in the area._

_But he brought Sundance out to heal her._

_And the Rifleman made his shot._

_She looked up and watched Dance die, and watched the vigor drain from Cayde’s optics. She heard her ghost uncharacteristically yell through the bond,_

but I have seen 

death’s clever enormous voice 

which hides in fragility 

He dies quietly, this time. 

All night I rose and fell, as if in water, 

grappling with a luminous doom. By morning 

I had vanished at least a dozen times 

into something better. 

The next time, she goes with him. Her own ghost is shot, then she. Cayde loses Dance like the first time, needing support. They crawl to each other. Hold hands as they die. He chokes out a weak laugh about Petra and her collateral damage. 

She hopes that this is the end.

It’s not.

She doesn’t scream when she’s on the ship again. She sits up and cries. Silent tears that dampen the inside of her helmet. She pulls it off in a dazed manner, holding it in her gloved hands. In that cabin in the back of a dead man’s ship, she despairs.

Cayde finds her that way and asks what is wrong. Once again, she denies him an answer. She knows now that she is not dreaming. She thinks back to the golden age books that Ezra once spoke about, about religion and afterlives. About the burning one, that sinners are sent to and eternally punished in. She must be in hell.

  
  


the stars began to burn 

through the sheets of clouds, 

  
  


This time she is the one to stay in the security station. She convinces him to let her man the turrets as he carves a path through the rioting prisoners. She is the one to bring the station down, and she is the one who is revived at the very bottom of the prison. She’s all alone. The barons and their scorned come out and she hears them chitter among themselves of her not being the one they wanted to kill, but being good enough. She’s glad for it. If she dies and he lives, it’s enough.

and there was a new voice 

which you slowly 

recognized as your own, 

But then he’s right beside her and he’s lighting up the dark with fire from his golden gun, a blade barrage following it. He’s right beside her and then he’s taking a hit for her and then he’s on the ground and Dance is out to heal him again and then she’s gone. Where does the shot come from? Where? There. It’s the same every time. She scopes in with her sniper to shoot him down, but then Uldren Sov is right behind her with Ace in his hands and there's a bullet from him in her back.

And another in Cayde’s head.

that kept you company 

as you strode deeper and deeper 

into the dark, 

When she’s awake again she goes right to him.

“Cayde.” He looks up from the controls, setting Dance up to keep their course steady. He kicks up his feet and motions for her to sit with him, but she stays standing on shaky legs.

“What's up?” She breathes in, exhaling in a shuddering sigh.

“I just… Have a really bad feeling. If I go down, I need you to leave me behind.” His optics widen, before setting into something akin to disapproval.

“Absolutely not. I ain’t leaving a friend behind. Especially not you. No casualties! We’re just going to prison, so how bad could this possibly be?” His voice attempts to inject humor into the interaction, but she can’t bring herself to play along. Play along as the old Storm would. 

“I need this, Cayde. I have a really bad feeling about this, and it’s better one than both. Better me than you.” He stares her down, searching her gaze for answers to unasked questions. She looks away as she gives a wry smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

  
  
  


determined to do 

the one thing you couldn’t do -- 

  
  
  


He agrees.

determined to save 

the only life you couldn’t save. 

  
  
  
  


He lies.

  
  


She takes down the rifleman. A simple shot, he’s right where she knew he would be. She rips her way through 2 more barons before it all goes to shit. He lied to her. He lied even though he promised her.

Then Sundance is dead and so is he, and so she will be soon. She puts a bullet in her ghost and puts a bullet in her head--

But then she’s right back on the ship.

She promptly vomits. 

I wanted 

to hurry into the work of my life; 

I wanted to know, 

Why is it like this? Over and over, round and round, a cycle that repeats.

She tries again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

whoever I was, 

Again.

Again.

Again.

I was alive. 

Again

Again

Again.

  
  


Again

AGAIN.

Over and over until everything else falls away and there is only her, a corpse, and her failure.

For a little while.

So she gets back up and goes again.

And when Cayde dies once more, she does not cry. She has no more tears. There is only the dark that beckons ever so sweetly.

* * *

  
  
  
  


“Cayde, I’m trapped in a time loop.”

She doesn’t know how long it takes her to say it. How many times she’s watched him die. 

“What?”

She doesn’t know what saying this will do.

“Exactly what I said. I’m reliving the next few hours over and over again, and every single time, you die.”

I thought I could not

go any closer to grief

without dying.

“You okay, buddy? Need to sit down? Why don’t you sit this mission out, okay? We can talk about this after.”

He thought she was crazy. She had to be, didn’t she?

I went closer,

and I did not die.

  
  


“No, I can’t. I’m not crazy yet, Cayde. It happens over and over and over. Uldren Sov puts a bullet in you over and over and I can’t stop it.”

Surely God

had his hand in this,

At the mention of Uldren he stops, and he looks at her. Really look. Sees how she’s aged seemingly instantly. Sees her shaking legs and sees the absolute despair that must lay in her glowing amber eyes.

  
  
  


Still, I was bent, 

and my laughter, 

as the poet said, 

was nowhere to be found. 

“Theres no possible way for you to know about Uldren being in that prison. How?”

“I’ve watched him kill you more times than I can count. He always takes the Ace of Spades and shoots you after the Scorned Barons kill Sundance. Every time I try something different it fails in a new way.” 

Cayde pulls himself to hit feet and steps towards her. Stands right in front of her as she wavers.

“You can’t be doing this to yourself, Storm. I made my mistakes, and it’s my fault if I die. I’ve prepared for it.”

Then said my friend, (brave even among lions),  
“It’s not the weight you carry” 

“No! I can’t let you die! What will it all have been for? Why have I been fighting? I killed my own ghost to end it!” Her ghost, who had thus been silent, begins going through the new memories that were available to him. She feels him touch the darkness in her and recoil. He feels her despair, how it roils. 

“Every story has an ending, Storm. What if this is mine?”

She is taken to a time and place where she heard those words. A cache in an archology on Titan, tears, hive, voice recordings, closure. She had gone back to the tower and hadn’t needed her flask, hadn’t needed to go to the ratty old bar that she had frequented for over 40 years. Can she just let go like that?

but how you carry it -  
books, bricks, grief -  
it’s all in the way  
you embrace it, balance it, carry it. 

Time is up, and Petra is calling. They don’t stick together and fight together and fall together.When Dance inevitably dies, when Cayde inevitably makes his last stand, she’s not there. It’s the original death all over again. She’s seen it before. She walks into the room and Uldren is gone before she can make a shot. She skids down next to Cayde, and takes his hand.

“Speechless… Careful, or you’ll end up like those exo friends of yours…” It hurts. “I guess I have no choice but to believe you now… huh?”

It hurts.

“Storm… this… this ain’t on you. It was my mistakes that got me where I am, ya' hear?. You… You gotta keep going. You gotta move on. You gotta see the sun on the other side of the night. You’ve seen it before, haven’t you?”

Ah. Her ghost is a traitor.

“Storm… you gotta know one last thing… That night, with you? It was the best of my life… I know… Too late, too little… But I had’ta say it…”

Oh.

_Oh._

She anguish burns all the more fierce, but then it… Dulls. 

“I love you too, Cayde. I… I’m never going to forget you.

She thinks she hears somebody calling her name.

“Heh… As if you could forget somebody as great as… Me…”

It’s louder now, echoing in her thoughts. 

**This is wrong.**

**No. You will not wake up.**

**Despair, O Prisoner mine, despair.**

The world seems to crack. The ground trembles and the air is thick with ozone. It smells like the Taken. 

Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

She’s on a glowing plate in Riven’s room. Around her, her fireteam members are also waking. 

Riven. 

The last Ahamkara. 

The one they’ve been sent to kill. 

  
  


Oh. It was her all along. The suffering. The bone-deep ache that permeates through her entire body. It was all an answered wish, one answered oh so wrong.

She’s going down.

And so she does.

And when it is time for the Queen’s Walk, she feels the hands of another over hers. She walks with more ghosts than just her own. She slams Riven’s heart into place, and unloads round after round from the Ace of Spades that is rightfully at her hip into it, hoping and praying that it is enough.

And in the bright light that follows, she almost swears she sees someone smile, then turn to walk away.

She smiles right back.

  
  


Later, when the 6 of them are recovering, Seph, Storm, and Isa all huddle together in the pillow fort that used to be her flat’s living room.

It is Isa who asks the question, the blue-haired awoken’s eyes tired and subdued.

Storm thinks about her answer for a long while.

“A beginning.”

  
  


to live in this world

you must be able

to do three things

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

**Author's Note:**

> Quotes and Poetry taken from E. E. Cummings, and Mary Oliver. God and Goddess of Poetry in my humble opinion.
> 
> Did you cry? I sure as hell did.


End file.
